Today is my birthday. My first awareness of the day came at 3:55 a.m. when I awoke from a dream. I was a therapist (something I have not been for 8 years) meeting with a university student client. The client is someone I do not know in my waking life. She is unique to this […]
A loss remembered
Fifty years ago today. I looked at my calendar this morning and recognized the date. It was a pivotal event, one of those events that divided my life calendar into “before” and “after” categories. Pam was my first real girl friend. She was the first girl I kissed. She was the first girl to break […]
Conservative Christian contortionism
Donald Trump is on a campaign to win over conservative Christians. This would be laughable except that Christian conservatives appear to be buying it. Even James Dobson testified that Trump, who recently stated he had nothing to confess to God because he didn’t do many bad things, is now a “baby Christian.” This particular sideshow […]
That ain’t Christian
Well, it happened as we knew it would. Some fundamental wing nut “Christian pastors” opened their mouths from the pulpit in the wake of the Orlando massacre, and hatred spewed out. Their message: those who were killed deserved it because they were homosexual. Because their behavior is condemned in the Bible, their death is not […]
A little understanding, please
Printed in the Abilene Reporter News, Sunday, May 22, 2016 You very likely have shared a public bathroom with a person who identifies as transgender. It probably went like this. You did your business. The other person did theirs. You left. They left. We already share public facilities and nothing happens. I admit that I know […]
Being simplistic: a political and spiritual problem
This post was printed as an opinion column in the Abilene Reporter News, April 17, 2016 Now that the presidential candidates are no longer campaigning in the South and Southwest, they are touting their Christian credentials far less. Though there are many Christians in other parts of the country, the label is less salient as a […]
Faith is an active process. So is doubt.
I guess you could read the last few entries and conclude, “John has some serious problems with faith.” I don’t think that is where I am. I have some serious problems with confusing faith with some things that faith is not, such as certainty, gullibility, or intellectual passivity. For me faith is an active process. […]
Still more honest doubt
“The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.” -Ann Lamott Many years ago I supervised a young doctoral student. He was in his first semester of practicum. That means he was seeing his first clients under the supervision of someone else, me. A few weeks into our work, we were […]
More honest doubt
Thomas: the patron saint of honest doubters. I have always liked the guy. He was the only one of Jesus’ followers who had the nerve to say, “I’m not going to take your word for it. I have to see it.” I like him because I have always been gullible, and I admire him for […]
Easter: Honest doubt and militant hope
“Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never more than a single grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But […]